Pry Open My Mouth With The Red Knife Of Heaven
by liriaen
Summary: Anotsu Kagehisa, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. [A meditation upon endings. Anotsu & misc. demons. Rated M. Dark.]


**Title: **Pry Open My Mouth With The Red Knife Of Heaven  
**Characters:** Anotsu Kagehisa (& misc. demons)  
**Disclaimer: **All Samura-sensei's.  
**Rating/Warnings: **R; darkish.  
**Summary: **Anotsu Kagehisa; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.  
**Word Count: **2.030  
**A/N: **The characters of Datsueba and Keneo are taken from Japanese mythology; they serve a certain purpose in dealing with the dead, reminiscent of Dante's Inferno/Purgatory. Versions of this (temporary) afterlife and the Ten Kings in Hades are familiar to YnM fans; this one, however, goes back to the Heian and Kamakura periods. :) Thank you, moshesque, for hand-holding and beta! snuggles

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**Pry Open My Mouth With The Red Knife Of Heaven**

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_Izanami, full of worms_.

Anotsu's breath comes sharp and ragged when he shouldn't be breathing at all, and even as he is gasping, retching, he reminds himself, _this is nothing_. _Nothing_.

This is Izanami's realm.

This is Shinko-o, the seventh day after his funeral.

He does not know whether they dressed him in white, closed the kimono right over left, burned him to fine grey ash. He does not know whether they threw his corpse out beyond the walls of the harbour for the dogs to chew on. He knows nothing beyond the fact that this is Izanami's realm.

The grass he stumbles through cuts his bare feet and shins, and while he shouldn't feel pain, he still does. He can still feel the lightning stroke of the blade, for one thing, feel the separation from everything that _is_, making him one who _was_.

The bridge wouldn't let him set foot on it.

There was no ferry, and had there been one, he wouldn't have had six mon to pay for the crossing. His hands are empty.

When he came to the ford, the shallow waters rose as soon as he dipped a bleeding foot in; rearing up, the waves started to froth like angry dragons. He jerked back and didn't try again.

Some way down the river though, the reeds seem to part for him. He grips the long blades of green, and now he doesn't notice that they're sharp enough to cut sinew from bone. It's the churning waters that have his attention, thick with water snakes that mill about like hungry koi.

This is the first time he hesitates, at the edge of the Sanzu.

From now on, his life and his breath will be measured in intervals of seven; he will walk from judge to judge until he is no more. Anotsu Kagehisa, whoever that was, _already_ is no more, but this only is the first gate of ten. And he stands at the edge, aghast at the prospect of having to cross here.

_This is Izanami's realm_, he reminds himself. _This is nothing_.

Girding the kosode of pale green jade, he steps into the water. It's freezing cold, and hot enough to cook his flesh. Water splashes up; snakes begin to curl around his wading legs, a load so heavy he can barely lift his feet. They strike the second he tries to brush them off, fangs digging into cramped muscle, pain increasing with every step he takes. When the ground finally falls away, they're up to his neck, wrapped around his body like a writhing shroud. Thrashing, Anotsu swallows fistfuls of water. Getting into his mouth, his nostrils, it tastes like gall and blood, and as soon as the snakes start to worm their way into his clothes he swallows buckets of it.

Between the burn of water in his lungs and snakes everywhere, he tries to let go - but the instant he slips on a rock, slips and slides into the deep, he is thrown out to a shallower part of the Sanzu.

He drags himself to a spot where his knees hit the rock, then begins to heave. His hair trails his face like seaweed, and he has to push it behind his ears to be able to see.

There was a sword, he remembers now, shearing through four or more of his ribs before it slammed into his spine. The instant it was torn free, his legs gave way and his head fell back. He died with his eyes wide open.

Cradling his side, he pushes himself up and stumbles down a narrow path in the reeds, up another riverbank of soft crumbling earth.

This is the first time he falls, in Izanami's realm - crawling away from the Sanzu.

His kosode is soaked with mud and blood and water, and as much as he wants to look up, catch a glimpse of the sky, he can't. He's staring at grass and earth instead, clotted with the blood he keeps bringing up.

_This is nothing_. Slowly, he sits up and wipes his mouth with the back of a trembling hand.

That's when he sees the tree - a gnarled pine, branches twisting into the dead slats of heaven; a tree so crooked no artist could possibly invent, no brush could paint it.

There's an old woman sitting by a fire underneath, her shabby yukata open to reveal withered breasts hanging down the folds of her stomach. She must be as old as the tree itself, but the second she spots him, she rises with surprising agility. Baring her gums in a toothless grin, she hobbles forward to meet him - faster than a monkey, too, propelling herself forward on one dangling arm and two skinny legs.

Anotsu feebly tries to drag himself out of her way, but she is faster: pushing herself off the earth with a grunt, she jumps onto his back, feet first.

Her thin arms fasten around his neck, and their joint momentum throws him to the ground. She's a papery, putrid bag of bones held together by rancid skin, kneeling on his split ribcage, and when she knees his sides like an impatient rider, Anotsu cries out.

He's heard his gasps, his own animal noises, but not this: a voice raw with agony, cracked like an egg, air hissing through clenched teeth.

When she grabs him by the hair, she seems to grow tall enough to yank him up in an excruciating twist. _This way_, she says. Her voice is a youkai's, like a corpse without voicebox or jaw even, the dry rustle of locusts and the soft squelch of decay. She does not have to open the distended flab of her mouth for him to hear. She does not speak at all.

_This way, son_. Cackling, she shoves him towards the massive tree.

He's hunched over, gripping his middle until he sees a second pair of feet, no less repulsive than hers; the callused, clawed feet of an old, old man. _Let's see then_, the two demons tease. Their voices turn into a grating cacophony, and it's only then that Anotsu recalls their names - names to frighten children with; useless now, in the land of the dead.

Datsueba and Keneo: she who undresses and he who weighs.

She pushes him under the lowest-hanging branch of the tree as if it were a gallows pole and he about to be hung. They can do that; they can do anything to him before they have to send him on to Shoko-o in seven days' time, so he doesn't know why he still stands so proud.

Leering, Keneo rests his chin and hands on his staff, the long knotted rod of a wandering monk, and watches the hag undo the sash of Anotsu's kosode. Her fingers resemble spidery twigs, stuck into her palms to serve as digits.

_This is nothing_. Lowering his eyes, Anotsu draws a ragged breath.

He looks aside as she teases the two long shawls from his middle. Water and dirt have made them stubborn, but she patiently tugs at knots and ties. Once Anotsu sees his netsuke slipping off his sword cord, his mouth is drawn into a thin, wretched line.

He resists the urge to squirm against the wet silk that outlines his body in obscene, clinging detail. Its follows the curve of his collarbone and sticks to his chest. It winds over the hollow plane of his stomach and the scythes of his hips. It curls around his genitals and dips between his legs.

He knows what comes next, although nothing has prepared him for this: for the Datsueba to step closer and change, her head resting against his breast, her wiry hair softening... becoming shorter, and black. And when she tilts her chin up, he no longer sees a demon's bulging, blood-shot eyes, but Makie's, soft and serious.

He begins to quiver. Soon, his entire frame shakes as if gripped by a fever. With a soft, exasperated sigh, she moulds herself against him, pushing one knee between his legs.

Anotsu closes his eyes, breathing heavily_. Izanami_, he reminds himself, _this is Iza-_

Gently, he lifts a hand to her hair.

Cradles the back of her head, feels the ridge of her spine.

But just as she tucks herself under his chin, more and more of her stays in his fingers. At first it's only a few loose hairs, then a strand. Next it's entire bits of scalp that have rotted away from the skull. Hissing as if he'd burned himself, he tries to pry the Datsueba off, grabbing her bony wrists.

It's still Makie, still... Makie, only months gone: a corpse, nuzzling his shoulder. She shoves a half-rotted hand between the lapels of his kosode. When he makes a strangled noise, she flows from his grasp and steps around, embracing him from behind; one arm curled round his shoulders, the other pushing further into his robes.

She doesn't rip off his kosode, doesn't tear his thin black cotton yukata, no. Her fingernails trail Anotsu's patterned tomoeri, the outer collar, with affection and desire. Soon she pinches his nipples and licks his ear, crooning endearments that crawl over his skin like maggots.

Sodden as his garments are, she slowly lifts and peels them off, her fingers lewdly circling his navel, brushing his abdomen.

He can't help the little whine that escapes his throat, and she answers his moan by grazing his skin. _Let's see it then_, she repeats, and his kosode comes off to pool around his feet. His yukata follows with a wet slap. _Nothing_, he thinks, looking up into the far crown of the tree.

_I am nothing_.

Wearily, his head falls back, coming to rest on Makie's... the Datsueba's shoulder, each of her touches a travesty.

Anotsu's flesh begins to run when she pries open his mouth and pushes three fingers inside. She smells like rot and mouldy leaves, like the oily smoke rising from a funeral pyre, and her fingers press down and push deeper, deeper, grabbing his tongue, while her other hand reaches down to rip the last strip of linen and grip his cock until his entire body shakes.

Anotsu is close to choking.

Thrashing convulsively, his vision comes and goes, but he still sees the Keneo picking up his robes, draping them into the lowest branch of the tree with his staff as if hanging them out to dry.

It is a mighty tree. The kind of tree never seen by the living. Its lowest branches are nearly as thick as its trunk, yet the one hung with Anotsu's clothes bends earthwards, creaking, close to touching the ground.

This is first time he cries, near the Sanzu.

Even as he is helplessly coming in the Datsueba's hand, tears are streaming down his face. When the old man finally pokes his garments off the tree, Anotsu's knees buckle, and he slips out of the demon's grasp. She gives him an extra little shove, acting as if it were she who's repulsed by him, not the other way round.

When the Keneo drops his wet rags in front of him, Anotsu curls in on himself. He numbly watches the two demons tread back to their camp fire, not once glancing back. As far as they are concerned, their work is done, his verdict given.

Anotsu reaches one quavering hand after the bundle. He's able to touch it, but too weak to keep a hold of it. Neither does he notice the passing of time, nor how dusk turns into dark. He lies on the ground, eyes unseeing, until the Datsueba returns to prod his flank with her scabbed toes. _Don't you have somewhere to go? _she says.

Slowly pushing lank hair from his face, he rolls over to look up. It takes a moment before his mind clears; before he can pull himself together and pull on his clothes. He sways like a birch, barely able to stand. Then he walks on.

He has to. _This is Izanami's realm._

_Anotsu Kagehisa is nothing._

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End file.
